


Balance of Attraction

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 08:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2303264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr ships AU meme: lab partners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance of Attraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [damalur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/gifts).



> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://notalwaysweak.tumblr.com/post/97456341793/damalur-also-asked-sheldon-leslie-14).
> 
> Not mine, just borrowing.
> 
> * * *

Sheldon braces himself to get picked last.

It’s always been the way, after all; last for sports and last for group work and last for friendships. Why should chem lab be any different, just because this is where he knows what he’s doing, surrounded by the accoutrements of science?

But when the mad stampede for bench space is finished, he finds himself face to face with someone. A  _girl_. His memory sorts through the roll call from the start of class: Winkle, Leslie. Low brown pigtails tied back with rubber bands instead of ribbons; a sharp expression that dares him to object to her presence, as if raising his voice to implicitly tell the entire classroom that he does not play well with others will endear him to them any more.

"Hey. Do you prefer ‘Sheldon’, or ‘Cooper’?"

"I… Sheldon is fine. What about you?"

"Just Leslie." She gives him a short smile. "What do you know about saturated copper sulfate solutions?"

"Only that I did this when I was five."

Leslie grins. “Me too.”

*

Their crystal structure is a complex one. They coax the crystals to grow along interwoven lengths of fishing wire, forming a shining blue web. Since it’s a long slow process, when they’re not actively working on it they sit with their heads close together, skipping from solutions to acid-base reactions to stoichiometry as the teacher gets more and more sick of them calling out, “Done!” in unison.

They argue frequently about everything from how their crystal should grow, to covalent bonds in graphite, to whether chemistry, physics, or biology will offer the best long-term study options.

The one thing that they absolutely agree on is that everyone else in the class is hopelessly remedial and that this sort of thing should have been left behind with middle school; as if the hormonal sophomores with whom they share a lab will ever focus long enough to complete this delicate task.

*

Leslie saves one of the other girls, one of the ones who spend more time fussing over their makeup than their experiments, from doing something really fucking stupid with the hydrofluoric acid. Well, actually, the stupid’s already done; Leslie just gets to the girl before her frozen friends can react to her scream and first shoves her hand under running water and then grabs the tube of calcium gluconate gel, calmly but quickly getting it onto the girl’s skin.

The teacher congratulates her. The girl tearfully hugs her, and then so do all of the girl’s friends, like a little lipsticked hivemind.

Leslie just sits back down after washing her own hands thoroughly, and treats Sheldon to a ten minute diatribe about lab equipment safety.

*

After school, after the experiment is over, they’re in the lab carefully painting clear acrylic layers onto the crystals. Sheldon’s going to take them home first, and then Leslie gets them for a while, like elementary school kids showing off a macaroni Eiffel Tower to their parents.

Sheldon’s gently fanning the crystals to dry the latest layer of acrylic when Leslie catches his wrist. For a second he thinks he’s done something wrong.

Then he sees the look in her eyes and knows he hasn’t.

Several comments come to mind, almost all puns about chemistry, but as Leslie’s arms go around his neck, tugging him down into a kiss that starts out tentative but quickly blossoms into Leslie’s usual self-assuredness, he can’t vocalize any of them.

A couple of the crystal strands break, but Sheldon and Leslie are too lost in one another to notice.


End file.
